Sexless and Loveless Marriages

E. Lucas would have been fully aware of the irony of monogamy turning into monotony even in 19th century when he stated, “After you have been married for five years, there should always be someone for dinner.�

Many married couples are painfully aware that after the initial phase of dating in which hormones and projected fantasies initiate and maintain the flame of lust, when couples start living together they realize how much loving someone is different than living with someone. Many people are surprised how the same routine life that provides stability and security starts to kill creativity, spontaneity and love. Within a few years many couples start to feel disillusionment. They realize that their peaceful life is becoming boring. That is when they become aware that their monogamy is turning into monotony. Such a transformation is reflected in Debra’s story,

“I met my partner just over 3 years ago through a mutual friend. We did not become sexually active right away. When we did finally take our relationship to the next level it was the evening after a wonderful date. We went out and then went back to his place and very spontaneously we decided that I would spend the night as there was no rush for me to get home. I told him I would, only if he was able to sleep in the bed with me without touching me.....seeing we had just started getting to know each other. He agreed, and indicated this would not be a problem for him. I indicated that I was serious, and proceeded to get ready for bed. Well we went to bed and decided we would cuddle and the rest is history. Of course he was weaker than he thought!! From that day came the best sex that I had ever had as it was spontaneous and exciting every time. I would visit on Fridays and stay the weekend and as soon as I got through the door he was all over me, literally ripping off my clothes. He introduced me to things I had never even thought of sexually, like multiple orgasms while having intercourse.....totally unheard of in my books, and so much more. This would happen majority of the time. So, of course, when he asked me to move in with him all I could think of was being together every day and getting this type of sex on a regular basis, since that was how it was just dating.

Well, was I disappointed. We finally moved in and sex as I knew it became totally nonexistent. I would be lucky if we had sex once a month. We used to watch porn movies when we dated even this stopped once we started living together. When I approached him on the matter he had no explanation. In his mind this was how relationships are when you start living together, no sex. I let him know my concern and wanted him to understand that this was unacceptable for me.
We would book date nights to see if this would ignite the flame in him, but still not change. So I decided to initiate and he would say no and I felt rejected and hurt. We came to the agreement that twice a week should be the minimum as that was the minimum when we were dating, however, even this would be hit and miss. It can be really discouraging at times because I started to feel that he was not sexually attracted to me or that he was sleeping with someone else, both of which he has assured me are not the case. So I tried one more angle, and asked him to buy me a toy since he was no longer able to satisfy me sexually, well I am still waiting. I also mentioned to him that I now understood why people had affairs. He was not too happy with that comment.

I have made the decision not to leave the relationship due to different libidos and hope that one day we will be in sync again. Until then things are what they are. I am hoping one of these days he will surprise me by actually having sex twice in one week without any prompting from me.

Many married couples in love do not realize that human beings have conflicting and contradictory needs. On one hand they need intimacy and on the other hand freedom.
When they are single and enjoying freedom they yearn for emotional and romantic closeness but when they get married they get worried of losing their freedom. They are afraid their spouses will clip their wings and they would feel like caged birds.

The more time couples spend with each other, the more they bring out the best and worst in each other. People start experiencing the dark side of love expressed in the form of insecurity and jealousy. Many couples develop a love / hate relationship with their spouses. When couples cannot resolve their emotional conflicts they start to regress.
Some get depressed, some embrace addictions while others start having affairs.

Those frustrated couples who decide to have children, unconsciously try to save their marriage temporarily. Children become a constant focus and the same spouses who used to call each other ‘honey’, ‘dear’, ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’ start calling each other ‘mama’ and ‘papa’. That is why it is not surprising that divorce rates in many parts of North America peaks at one and seven years after marriage, either before having children or after children starting to go to school. Some of those couples that survive seven years crisis get divorced after twenty years of marriage when children graduate from high school and leave home to go to college or get a job. Many such couples experience an empty nest and realize that in 20 years lovers have transformed into strangers.

Many couples realize that the spirit of love has died only the shell has remained. They are legally but not romantically together as their love for each other has died. When a priest was asked how could he support divorce being a Catholic, he said that ‘till death do us apart’ does not mean physical death, it means death of love.

I have met many couples in my clinical practice who wished they had never got married as they believed that their marriage killed their love. When I asked those couples that if they did not love each other why they were still together, some said ‘finances’, some said ‘children’ while others said ‘religious traditions’.

When I work with couples I share with them that in my opinion there are four types of marriages
…stable and satisfactory marriages
…unstable and unsatisfactory marriages
…unstable but satisfactory marriages’
and
…stable but unsatisfactory marriages.

It is the fourth type that usually sees marital therapists as they can neither make their marriage satisfactory nor can they break up. I share with the couples that one of the secrets of keeping a marriage loving and happy is healthy communication in which couples can resolve and dissolve conflicts peacefully.

I suggest to couples that we would try to resolve conflicts and do marriage counseling and if that did not work then we would try to dissolve conflicts and try separation counseling. It is not uncommon for unhealthy couples to blame the other person for marital problems. I try to help them see how both of them consciously or unconsciously contribute to the deterioration of marriage. I ask both of them to genuinely try to make some positive changes. Those couples who can focus on their own attitudes and change behavior are usually successful and save the marriage, while those who keep on expecting the other spouse to change and are not willing or ready to change their own behavior do not succeed much in improving the quality of their marriage.

I strongly feel that for any marriage to survive happily both spouses need to take responsibility to keep their love alive and growing. For that to happen both partners need to grow individually as well as a couple.
There are many couples who grow apart over the years and are no longer in love with each other. Some of them fall in love with someone outside the marriage. A philosopher once said, ‘where there is marriage without love, there is love without marriage.�

I find it interesting that traditional couples have more emphasis on ‘We’ while non-traditional couples cherish their ‘I’ and do many things independently. When an ‘I’ person marries a ‘We’ person, there is a possibility for the ‘We’ person to feel rejected when the ‘I’ person does many things independently.

Many non-traditional individuals and couples feel that human beings are outgrowing the institution of marriage. They feel that sex and love are private affairs between two people and we do not need to involve religion and law in their private matters. With the decline of religious influences and increase in women’s financial independence the institution of traditional marriage is losing its grip and church and state are not having the same impact on people’s lives. I was surprised when our tourist guide in Dominican Republic told us that most of the children on the island are born outside the wedlock as 75% of couples never get married. They live common law.

The more people realize the negative effects of the institution of marriage on love, the more they want to try hard to protect and safeguard their loving relationships. Some sleep in separate beds, some in separate rooms and some live in separate homes. Bernard Shaw believed that marriages would last longer if spouses did not live together.

In our clinical practice we try to save as many marriages as possible especially those that have children as we do not want children to suffer because of their parents. But if we feel that spouses are hurting each other and have become poor role models for children then to end violence or abuse we discuss temporary separation for both parties to see how their life would be if they lived in separate homes. We try to help them resolve their conflicts respectfully but if they cannot do that especially when abuse, affairs and addiction are involved and one party feels angry, resentful and betrayed then we discuss separation counseling alongside marriage counseling so that the couple can honestly discuss their options and find their unique solution to their unique problem.

There are many couples who have outgrown the institution of marriage and are now focusing on their personal, professional and creative dreams. When we look around we find that the institution of marriage is on crossroads. The more communities will accept non-traditional relationships the less we would have a need for legal and religious marriages and couples will enjoy their loving relationships without social pressure to conform to age old and outdated traditions.

In the last century while more and more women are liberating themselves and are less financially and emotionally dependent on men, they have less need to get married. They feel free to have platonic, romantic or sexual relationship with men. Many cultures still have double standards for men and women. When men have more than one sexual partners they are called ‘playboys’ while when women have the same lifestyle they are labeled as ‘loose’, ‘sluts’ and ‘whores’. Some men and women jokingly say that when they have no intention of getting married they cannot be accused of having ‘pre-marital’ sex.

In the 21st century people from all over the world have more choices than they had a couple of centuries ago and many are choosing love over marriage. They stay together as long as they love each other and when love dies they move on. The dynamic relationship between sex, love and marriage is changing and evolving depending upon the dynamics of psychological, social and economic factors. When my Eastern friends focus on the high divorce rates in the West, I share with them that stability of marriage in the East is no reflection of health and happiness of marriage. I know many loveless and sexless marriages of the East. It is not surprising then that when Eastern couples move to the West within a couple of years one of them, more often women than men, start contemplating divorce as they want to end loveless and sexless marriages and want to engage in loving relationships. When someone asks me if there are more sexless and loveless marriages in the East or the West I say to them ‘your guess is as good as mine.� We are still living in an era where many couples like to pretend and are not fully honest about their intimate lives.